Rumor: Nokia To Jump on Netbook Bandwagon

Now here’s a new one. Apparently tired of just producing dumbphones, smartphones, and internet tablets, Nokia is now setting its sights on the now-ubiquitous netbook, says thestreet.com. Unfortunately, they’re a little late to the game.

According to the article, the devices will be assembled by Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer Foxconn, the same company responsible for building several, probably featureless, Nokia CDMA phones that eventually made their way to Verizon Wireless in the US.

Netbooks, for those who need a primer, are those tiny (generally less than 10″) laptops that aren’t quite laptops. They’re smaller, internet-enabled (wi-fi, 3G, etc) computers that can run nearly any operating system, but tend to be limited by less memory, less drive space, and well – pretty much less everything. But they’re nice for road warriors or people who just want to browse the web or run less CPU-extensive applications from anywhere. And finally, they’re cheap. Really cheap. Like sub-$400 cheap.

I don’t know who created the netbook (Wikipedia says the one-laptop-per-child/OLPC, Psion’s netBook, and – get this – Palm’s Foleo planted the roots), but it’s definitely surged in popularity as of late, thanks to devices like Asus’ EEE PC, as well as offerings from Everex, Dell, and MSI.

But back to Nokia. Details are scarce, it seems, and we’re still left in the dark about when, where, or how much. I can’t answer any of those questions, but I have a gut feeling that this venture won’t fare so well for Nokia.